I decided to look outside the square at options to help me lose weight. I needed some ways to help me find my mojo again and one of the ideas was to see what a hypnotherapist could do to help. Don't get me wrong, I'm as skeptical about hypnosis as most people but I thought what the hell. I called up a friend of Ivan's who is a hypnotherapist, and make an appointment for a free half hour consultation to see if what he was offering was suitable. The appointment just happened to coincide with my day off for my birthday (and yes I'm a year older and not necessarily more wiser, just a few more wrinkles and hairs).
I met Andrew at the meeting room and instead of spending a half hour with him it ended up being a whole hour. I felt really comfortable with everything he was saying about how he could help me on a subconscious level with my weight loss issues and also some mindfulness works. The last thing i wanted to know was that honestly was I really a good candidate for hypnosis? So he did a couple of little experiments and I responded quite well so I decided that yes I was going to try this.
My doctor and the hospital have told me that I don't weigh enough to be considered eligible for the real gastric band operation (go figure) and I certainly don't want to put ON any more weight to become eligible. So with this in mind I have agreed to undergo a Virtual Gastric Band programme. It is Andrew's role to facilitate in my mind, both consciously and subconsciously, that I have had the operation and there is a gastric band around my stomach (albeit virtual). Thereby guiding me to realise that I don't want to eat as much as I used to, or as often as I used to.
Lastly, Andrew reminded me that this wasn't 100% money back guaranteed. That what I would be paying for was his time and experience, but that he did have a 93% success rate. I paid up front a fee and booked in my first session.
The first session was two hours long. Andrew walked me through a personal SWAT analysis and my short, medium and long term goals for change. This took about the first hour and it was very hard as it brought out some of the stresses that I have had during my life and how they were still eating at me inside and probably some of the underlying reasons why I had lost my motivation last year and therefore not allowing me to lose weight. Lastly we talked about the foods that I wanted to cut down or cut out of my life to help me achieve this goal.
Then he proceeded to work on hypnotising me, putting me to sleep, however you want to say it. Consciously I remember alot of what went on but for a while i did go off to sleep, get into a trance, I'm not sure but for a while inside the second half of the hour of being hypnotised I seriously don't remember anything. I remember Andrew playing a recording of what sounded like all the beepings and noises inside an operating theatre as if i was actually having an operation. I remember his voice being very calming and I remember being very relaxed.
I walked away from that first session feeling absolutely drained, shattered was probably the better word. I was just so tired. I wandered off to the bowling club for my usual Friday night drinks and pool with the lads. I had my usual two bourbon and cokes and a packet of chippies and then realised I couldn't keep my eyes open much longer and decided to go home.
I slept the best nights sleep in forever and didn't wake up til after 9am on Saturday, got up went to the loo and then went back to bed and promptly fell asleep again and didn't wake up a gain til after 1pm. That was so unlike me. Maybe this was my body's way of telling me I had been not giving it enough rest time.
Saturday was the Annual Volunteers Lunch at the Bowling Club from 2-4pm so off I went. It was a lovely spread. I spent a couple of hours with everyone nibbling and chatting and then came home again. It wasn't until I got home that I realised that I had had a bowl of chips in front of me the whole time i was there and I hadn't even nibbled on one of them.
I had my second session this week and we decided to work on adding some more of the foods I love so much that my body doesn't need into the "I don't need or want" part of my subconscious. We also talked about listening to my body and eating only when it tells me I'm hungry rather than feeding it at the normal breakfast lunch and dinner times every day.
Andrew again put me into a hypnotic state and again his voice was very charismatic and calming. Yet again I remember the first half of the session but not the second half. I remember him talking about body fat pouring into a bucket and asking what the fat looked like, how it felt and smelled, and trying to get me to "dip" a burger into a bucket of the muck and how I gagged at even the thought of doing it. It was very vivid in my mind.
After bringing me back out of my trance we did some more work on helping me work on self hypnosis as I had been struggling with the exercise he gave me the other week. This time we tried a different tack and it seemed to work in practice.
So what have i noticed this past nine days since my first session.
Two; My portion sizes are definitely decreasing - in fact one lunch time this week I couldn't even finish what I had brought in for lunch. I'd actually started gagging at the thought of taking another bite. Andrew said that was quite a rare response.
Three; My motivation for exercising hasn't increased, that will be something I will ask him to work on more at our next session.
Four; Between Monday last week and Tuesday this week I put on 1 kg but have lost 1.3 kg since Tuesday (Its Sunday).
Going forward my next session with Andrew is Wednesday week and then I have one final session Friday week after that. So do I expect this to be my miracle NO but from what I've been through so far I'm really happy and starting to see small results. Do I think its money well spent? Time will tell but so far so good.
(This weeks weigh in 136.3 kg)
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